Here Come the Hybrid ‘Laplets.’ Should You Care?

A slew of hybrids from various hardware manufacturers.

Microsoft’s touch-focused Windows 8 operating system is pushing a new form factor for devices: the tablet-notebook hybrid — or, as Gadget Lab likes to refer to it, the “laplet.” These sliding, folding, twisting, clicking contraptions look like notebooks but double as tablets. Or the other way around. You get the idea.

The question is whether these devices address a real need in the marketplace and will catch on with consumers, or they simply do two things poorly and will become this year’s netbooks.

“I do believe the convertibles have the ability to draw consumer attention,” IHS iSuppli analyst Craig Stice says. “The question of course will boil down to price with these new convertibles and how competitive they will be able to be versus the tablet.”

Think about these devices as being on a spectrum between full-on tablet, like the iPad, and a straight laptop. Microsoft is entering closer to the tablet end of the spectrum — and in a big way — with Surface, which elegantly incorporates some laptop form and functionality with an attachable keyboard and fairly advanced PC operating system with Windows RT. As my colleague Mat Honan points out, the company is reinventing the tablet with Surface RT.

But move a little further toward the desktop world and you’ll see that with Windows 8, Microsoft and its partners are also trying to reinvent the laptop. Windows 8 itself is a huge departure from previous versions of the operating system. Where Apple loads its iPads and iPhones with the same mobile operating system and its Macs with a separate desktop OS, Microsoft is taking a different strategy. With Windows 8, the company has decided to group the desktop and tablet on one OS and leave only the smartphone running on the mobile-only Windows Phone 8 OS.

But even on the desktop Windows 8 also leans toward mobile functionality with the touch-friendly Start Screen. In this world, it makes sense that tablets and laptops might share one form factor; hence, the laplet.

Companies like HP, Dell, Lenovo, Sony, Acer, Samsung, Toshiba, and Asus have all started pushing into this new category of convertible devices. In recent months we’ve seen a variety of laplets like Lenovo’s 360-degree folding IdeaPad Yoga convertible, which looks like a traditional notebook until you fold the screen all the way back so that the rear of the screen rests flush against the bottom of the device and, voila, it’s a tablet. There’s also Dell’s spinning XPS 12, which has a screen that can rotate in its frame, to face either inward like a notebook or outward like a tablet. Both seem well thought out and even highly practical, but they will cost $1,000 and $1,200 respectively — too expensive for consumers who might be approaching these from a tablet state of mind. And those coming from the notebook market have to consider the risk of investing the same amount of money into an unfamiliar category.

“Hybrid devices will not drive the overall growth [of the PC market] as long as the price point is higher than the $700 range,” Gartner analyst Mikako Kitagawa told Wired. “When the price drops below $700, it will start picking up.”

Beyond Lenovo and Dell, other manufacturers are also struggling to figure out what “convertible” really looks like and means. Sony’s take, the Duo 11, is a sliding option that very closely resembles Intel’s Cove Point reference design. The screen can slide up to reveal a keyboard or back down to be used as a tablet. But early reviews of the device have dinged it for making too many compromises in both modes, especially in how the keyboard affects overall practicality. And the Duo 11 starts at a high-end $1,100.

One company we won’t see a laplet from anytime soon is Apple, which has been especially critical of hybrid devices. “Anything can be forced to converge,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said during an investor call in April. “But the problem is that products are about trade-offs, and you begin to make trade-offs to the point where what you have left doesn’t please anyone. You can converge a toaster and a refrigerator, but those things are probably not going to be pleasing to the user.”

It’s clear, however, that Microsoft believes in the laplet at least for the sake of consumer choice. For the past year, since announcing Windows 8, Microsoft has said that the operating system is optimized for mobile devices like tablets, laptops and convertibles. The company included convertibles in the mix before most manufacturers had committed to making them. And Microsoft has featured several laplets on its official Building Windows 8 blog. “The innovation and breadth of PCs for Windows 8 is phenomenal, with all-in-ones, traditional notebooks now with touch, convertibles that enable new usage scenarios and tablets,” Microsoft told Wired in a statement. “There really is a Windows 8 PC for everyone.”

Intel, which has been pushing convertibles, also touts the benefits of the two-in-one devices. The company announced in September that it has already altered its 2013 roadmap and plans to help OEMs make even thinner, lighter and more varied hybrid devices starting in 2013. And Intel recently conducted a customer survey in which it let let people use five different devices — an all-in-one desktop PC with touch, a clamshell notebook with touch, a convertible with touch, a touch tablet, and an notebook without touch. The company found that while 75 percent chose the clamshell notebook as their device of choice, 44 percent also said that they would want a convertible, indicating consumer interest.

“We think that a convertible done right is going to give people a good blend of capabilities,” Intel’s director of ultrabook marketing Karen Regis told Wired. “What we’ve seen is that it’s very appealing to a lot of consumers, we think there’s a play for business as well.” Regis pointed out that most convertibles will not fall in the tablet price range but that there will be plenty of choices in various prices for consumers.

And Intel’s bets are on the laplet. “We think that this could be an inflection point,” Regis said. “We think touch is going to be important. It’s going to ramp up quickly in the PC space and that’s why Intel has gone out and secured capacity beyond the forecasted need.”

Even if the laplet category ultimately fails to catch on, though, it and Windows 8 are unquestionably driving change in what was becoming a slightly moribund PC space.

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